I have another great article from the food wizard herself, Lori Kennedy, CEO of WOW! Weight Loss Inc. Lori is a fat loss expert and has been working in the nutrition and weight loss industry since 2007.

It’s always great to have her around at our fitness conferences…you can tell when your meal choice isn’t a good one because she politely smiles and provides you with an alternative suggestion. She just can’t help herself.

The one thing Lori and I were discussing when I last saw her in March was the fear of food people have. She got so fired up about it that she sent this to me to post on the blog. She teaches her WOW! Practitioners how to help their clients overcome their fear of food, especially carbs.

See if anything Lori writes about resonates with you or your clients. Feel free to leave a comment below letting me know how you help your clients to make better food choices.

Take it away Lori…

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Hi again, Lori Kennedy here. Today we are going to be discussing a huge problem that I believe is one of the hidden reasons behind the overweight/obesity epidemic.

Fear of Food.

Research shows us that fear of eating and food confusion is at an all time high. It’s like common sense went out the window when it comes to making quality food choices at the grocery store.

Personally, I don’t get what all the confusion and fear is about, but it seems to be a powerful problem affecting the majority of the North American population.

Think of all of the processed foods being marketed as healthy.

Here’s just a short list off the top of my head…

Cherry 7UP Antioxidant

Mr. Christie’s Snak Paks FruitKrisps “made with real fruit”

Chapman’s Electrolyte Replacement Popsicle

Special K Morning Shake Strawberry Flavor

Skinny Cow Mini Fudge Bar for 45 calories

Fiber 1 Bars

It’s no wonder that people aren’t sure what to eat anymore. If you can get your daily dose of fruit and veggies from Mr. Christie’s Snak Pak then why bother with the annoying job of preparing, cooking and eating real food?

During the WOW! Certification course we spend a lot of time coaching fitness and nutrition professionals to handle the many food objections we get from clients, on top of teaching tactics to help clients get over their fear of eating good quality whole foods.

You know what I’m talking about… The comments about how their breakfast cereal is healthy because it’s made from whole grains, or the fat free fruit flavored yoghurt is a good choice because it has probiotics in it, or how their ice cream sandwich is a good choice for their 9pm snack because it’s only 80 calories.

Right?

I have a little story to illustrate what I mean. As you can imagine grocery shopping is one of my most favorite things to do. While I was waiting at the check out line I couldn’t help but notice that the person in the very front of the line had filled the ENTIRE conveyor belt with “Atkins food products.”

Notice how I didn’t say Atkins food…because these prepackaged, processed items are not food. They are food-like products!

The lady was discussing with the cashier and the person in front of me (who had about 6 containers of Mr. Noodle soups, 1 bag of Wonder Bread and 2 large bottles of ginger ale, ahem) about how these foods were helping her to lose weight when nothing else worked.

They were talking about carbs like the loaf of Wonder Bread was about to jump off the conveyor belt, pull out a gun and shoot them all in the head. Fruit seemed to be okay but never at night.

Confusion. Fear of food.

With all of the free information available, the conflicting dietary reports and the thousands of quick-fix, weight loss scams it’s no wonder people are confused and afraid to eat. We have a responsibility as health and wellness professionals to fix this problem.

Print the following out and give this 1-day meal plan to your clients. Show them what a day of eating real, good quality food looks like. Add more food if your clients are male.

1 Day Meal Plan (1438 Calories + 67 grams of fiber)

FYI if you wanted to add a glass of wine to dinner…go ahead, just dump the hamburger bun.